One Moment at a Time
by Nora May French
Summary: Heath blames himself for what happened. His family shows him that he's not to blame at all. Please heed warnings inside.


**Disclaimer:** I do not own the characters of this work of fiction, and am not making a profit through the writing of this, monetary or otherwise.

 **A/N:** Inspired by, The Spinny Thing, which gave me the following prompts: rape, Air, Mother, mouse, penance, joy, guitar, cold; and written for Suerum.

 **Warnings:** This features rape, and the aftermath of rape. This is not written to glorify rape, or perpetuate it, but to shed light on it, and to show that recovery is a process. Please do not read if this topic is a trigger for you.

* * *

It's cold, and he's got to make penance for what he's done. There is no joy in this. Somewhere, someone is playing a guitar. It's a mournful tune.

A mouse scurries from beneath Mother's chair, and he focuses on that, on the way that the air shifts around his skin, tries not to think of his real mother, the one who raised him. How shamed she'd be at what has befallen her son.

Time is not something that can be measured. Not in moments like this.

Audra screams, and Heath closes his eyes, struggles against the ropes that bind him to the chair, tries to bite his way through the gag that had been stuffed in his mouth. He can hear her sobbing. It's loud, pained, and his heart batters against his ribs.

He can't break free, and Tom Barkley watches him from the portrait that hangs over the fireplace. He's a stern looking man, and Heath wonders if he'd have been able to fight the men off; if Tom would have been able to stop them from tying him up and taking Audra, raping her.

She stops screaming, stops making noise, and Heath strains to hear something, anything, wriggles so much so that he ends up crashing, sideways to the floor, slamming the air from his lungs.

The commotion draws the attention of one of the men, and he stomps down the stairs, stands over Heath, trousers unbuttoned, shirt untucked, and Heath struggles to break free, screams obscenities at the man, and gains a boot to the gut for his efforts. Sees stars, can't breathe for what feels like forever.

He wonders how Eugene would fare if he was in Heath's place. Wonders what the college boy would do, if he'd shudder, when the man set the chair holding him to rights, and ran the flat edge of a knife along his jawline. Would Eugene nearly choke on his own bile? Or would the young man be brave, glare fiercely at his tormentor, and fight him to free, and exact vengeance for, his wronged sister?

When the gag is removed, the cloth hanging loosely around his neck, Heath spits at the man, and the man wipes the spit off his face and laughs, draws the sharp edge of the knife along Heath's cheek, draws blood. The cut isn't deep, but it stings.

"You're a lowly coward," Heath says.

"Your sister's a screamer, innit she?" the man says, gives Heath a toothless grin, leans in close so that Heath can smell the man's aftershave, and what he had for lunch that day - liver and onions, and whiskey, lots of whiskey.

"Don't you talk that way about her." Heath lunges forward, feels the pull of the ropes as they bite into his skin.

He's powerless to do anything when Audra lets out a blood-curdling scream that's cut-off long before it should be. It hurts him, and Heath makes some headway with the ropes, his own blood causing them to loosen a little.

"And just what are you going to do about it?" the man asks, and he pushes Heath backward, lets the chair clatter to the floor. Heath's breath is knocked out of him, and he nearly blacks out, feels a bone in his left wrist break.

"From where I'm standing, there ain't nothin' you can do." The man sneers down at him, and Heath starts to panic, in earnest, when the man starts to undo his trousers, and straddle him. "Let's see if that mouth of your'n is good for more'n just blubbering."

Heath clamps his mouth shut, but the man pries his mouth open, uses the knife to secure Heath's compliance. Heath struggles in vain, to stop what the man does, up until he has to concentrate just so that he can breathe. It's humiliating, and Heath closes his eyes, ignores the sting of tears, the man's grunts and half-uttered words of encouragement, the final grunt as he spills something sour and salty into Heath's mouth and makes him swallow.

"Wonder if you scream half as good as y'er sister," the man says, and Heath shakes his head, the humiliation of what has just happened still warming his cheeks, and poisoning his stomach. He feels sicker than he's ever been.

"Bet you do," the man says, and Heath closes his eyes, because the man's smile isn't really a smile, but something much more sinister.

He can no longer feel his arms, and they tingle when the man cuts the ropes, drags him over to the couch, and shoves him face down on top of it. He can't struggle, there's no more strength left in him, and his broken wrist isn't up to the task of pushing the man away.

"Horace!" someone calls from up the stairs, and Heath lets out a grateful noise, ashamed of himself for being relieved that the man is being called away, that he won't rape him as he had Audra.

"What is it? Can't you see I'm busy here?" Horace roughly works Heath's trousers down to the middle of this thighs, breath hot on the back of Heath's neck.

The other man laughs, and Heath's blood runs cold. "Jus' thought y'd like another run at the girl, is all. Pappy's done finished with her. I could spell you a while, if'n you'd like. She's too squirrelly for me."

Horace grunts, slaps Heath on the ass, leans down and whispers, "Later," against his ear. He digs the tip of a finger into Heath, and twists it.

"I gotta feelin' this one'll be real tight, Gil," Horace says.

Horace's fetid breath is soon replaced by that of another man. This one's a heavy breather, heavier set than Horace, and Heath bites the inside of his cheek to keep from making a noise when the man slaps him, and pulls his ass cheeks apart. He makes a smacking sound with his lips, and Heath's broken wrist gives way when he makes one last ditch effort to get free.

"You don't have to do this," Heath says, the words tumbling from his lips without any thought. "I...we've got money. We'll give you money, you and your -" he screams when the man, when Gil, enters him, grunting and squealing with delight.

It hurts so bad that Heath nearly passes out, pushes up against the couch, against the man, pushes Gil further inside of himself, and his bad wrist throbs painfully. Heath's broken and burning, and not even a bullet to the belly had hurt this much.

By the time it's over, Heath's sobbing, unaware of the fact that Gil has finished, and has shoved off of him, that the man is now petting his hair and whispering something soft and lewd in his ear. It would almost be a comfort, if the man hadn't just assaulted Audra and him.

He's so out of it, that Heath doesn't hear the sound of the approaching horses at all, doesn't hear Jarrod and Nick's loud greeting as they enter the house and call for him and Audra. Doesn't hear or see or know anything, other than what Gil's done to him, what the man must've done to a now silent Audra.

He's unaware of the ensuing fight, of the exchange of gunfire that leads to the deaths of the three intruders, he's retreated so far into himself, that he's unaware of anything until Jarrod kneels beside him, places a hand on his back, and he whimpers, pulls away, begs to be left alone, because it hurts, and he can't go through it again. He won't survive. He won't.

"Don't worry, little brother," Jarrod promises him, when Heath finally recognizes him, tells him to help Audra, because she's hurt.

"Nick's taking care of Audra. We're sending for the doc. Just rest, now, okay?"

Coward that he is, Heath lets his eyes slip closed, and does as his brother tells him. He rests. There's nothing else that he can do. He's already failed to do the most important thing - protect Audra. He can still feel Gil's hands, can still feel the pain, and the humiliation, can still hear his own hoarse cries reverberating throughout the house.

Heath doesn't know how he ends up in his own bed, wrist wrapped, Mother sitting in a rocking chair beside him, knitting something. It's a comforting sight, and it makes him want to cry, because it's so normal when nothing should be normal.

His head feels fuzzy, and his mouth is dry. She offers him water, shushes him when he apologizes for what happened to Audra, feigns sleep when she asks after him.

He failed Audra. Failed his dead father. Failed Victoria, Jarrod, Nick. Failed himself.

"Shh, it's okay," Victoria says.

Her fingers feel gentle where they stroke at his hair, his face. Where they brush away his silent tears. He doesn't deserve the comfort. Doesn't deserve her mothering.

"Shh, it wasn't your fault," Victoria says. There's steel in her voice, and when Heath chances a look at her, there's steel in her eyes, too.

"None of what happened was your fault, Heath. Those men..." she trails off, balling her hands into fists that tremble with suppressed rage.

"Hush, now mother." Jarrod enters the room, lays a hand on Victoria's shoulder, and stands beside her, looking down at Heath. There's no pity, no anger, in his brother's gaze, just sorrow and pain, and acceptance. No judgment.

"Those men are dead," Jarrod says, eyes locked on Heath's, holding his gaze until Heath's eyes fill with tears and he looks away.

"And they ain't coming back," Nick adds.

Heath doesn't turn his head to look at his other brother. He can't. Nick is all fury and passion, and Heath doesn't know how the brash man won't blame him for what happened to Audra.

"They're deader'n door nails, and buried in the fire pits of Hell." Spittle flies from Nick's lips as he speaks, and he's trembling with anger. "You ask me, it ain't near enough punishment for what they done to Audra, and Hea-"

"I'm sorry," Heath blurts, interrupting Nick before attention can be brought to his own injuries.

He doesn't deserve the recognition from these people. Doesn't deserve to have Victoria, Nick and Jarrod in his room, comforting him when he'd failed to protect Audra, and couldn't even protect himself. What kind of man allows another man to...Heath doesn't let his mind go there, focuses, instead, on Audra.

"You ain't got nothing to be sorry for, little brother," Nick says, and Heath wants to argue, but his heart is stuck in his throat, and it's hard to think, and he's both hot and cold, and there are tears on his cheeks, and Heath just wants to crawl into a hole and disappear.

He doesn't disappear, and his family doesn't leave him until sometime after he falls into a fitful sleep, and when he wakes again, Eugene is there, watching him, chin resting on steepled fingers. He offers Heath a half smile, and reaches a hand out to grasp one of Heath's, holds it even as Heath tries to pull it back.

"I'm sorry I wasn't here," Eugene says. "I doubt if I could've been half as brave as you and Audra were, but I would've -"

"I'm glad you weren't here," Heath says, voice rough with emotions that he wants to shove away, but can't. "I'm glad you weren't."

Tears fall like molten lava, and Heath doesn't know how to make them stop. He's as powerless over them as he was with Horace and Gil, and when the bed dips, and arms wrap around him, and his face is pressed against a solid chest, there's a moment of panic, before he realizes that the arms and chest belong to Jarrod. He's safe, and secure, and Jarrod's there, holding him as he weeps.

When his crying spell is over, and the tears finally dry up, Heath feels as weak as newborn kitten. His head's muzzy, and his mouth is dry, and he just wants to sleep.

"Is Heath okay?" Audra's voice, more timid than it should be, pulls Heath back from the edge of sleep, and he sees her face, pinched and pained, hovering close. When she sees him looking, she smiles, her split lip bleeding when the smile reopens the almost healed wound.

She takes Jarrod's spot on the bed, and takes Heath's hand. For several long moments, time seems to stop, while they regard each other, each seeing the horror of what they've been through mirrored in each other's haunted eyes.

"Thank you," Audra says, and they both cry, even though Heath had thought that all of his tears had dried up. Now, though, he wonders if he'll ever be able to stop crying, for Audra, for himself.

"I didn't do anything," Heath says, the words leave a bitter taste in his mouth, and twist his gut.

"You were there," Audra says, words whisper soft. She wraps her arms tight around Heath's neck, and whispers, "You were there."

It takes months to start recovering from the pain, and the humiliation. And it's months before Heath stops flinching whenever Nick slaps him on the back, like he used to; months before he can look Audra in the eye without being eaten up by guilt, and worrying about the penance he'll have to pay to make things right again (they'll never be right again); months before he can fall asleep without having a light on; months before he can even think about sex without breaking out in a sweat, and being sick.

And his family is there for him, for Audra, though it all. Through the night terrors, and the cold sweats. Through the tantrums brought on by memory that steals his breath, and makes him want to lash out at everyone and everything.

None of them mention what happened. They don't give it a name. They never call it rape. Never blame Heath, or Audra, for what happened, or mention where the men who'd assaulted them were taken away to be buried. It's enough to know that they're dead.

And they never shy away from Heath or Audra when they wake, screaming from nightmares, or when they are frozen in a moment of panic, unable to move, to breathe, to think beyond the fear that has seized them. Instead, they hold them, offering support through a warm body, and the strength of silence, or softly spoken reassurances.

A year, to the exact day, after the men had come and stolen what no men should be allowed to steal, Heath's sitting on a couch in the front room; the portrait of the father he never knew is staring down at him, at Audra, who's sitting next to him.

He can hear the cattle lowing in the fields, and there's a mouse, scurrying beneath Mother's chair. He watches its nose twitch, and Audra laughs as the mouse stands on its hind legs and sniffs around for food before being spooked by something neither of them can hear and running off to hide.

She's been doing more of that lately - laughing. And smiling. It makes Heath smile, too. Makes him think that, maybe, with enough time, and with this family by their side, they can put this day behind them, and move on past the pain of the memories. Move on past what Horace, Gil, and their Papa did, and claim a life for themselves.

"Audra, Heath, come on out and watch the sunset on the veranda," Victoria calls to them.

Exchanging a look, knowing what's going on in each other's minds, they grip each other's hands tightly, and squeezing, they join the family on the veranda to watch the sunset. It's a burst of purple, gold, orange and pink. Nick claps a hand on Heath's shoulder, Jarrod tips his head in their direction, gives them a tight smile, and Victoria holds his other hand. Her hand is small, warm, solid.

Heath's heart swells with a love that surpasses his pain, if only for this moment. _One day, one moment, at a time_ , he thinks, and there is peace in that.


End file.
